Eudaimonia in contemporary virtue ethics

Eudaimonia and virtue ethics1 are interwoven, many extant virtue-ethical theories being eudaimonist, and many (perhaps most) extant eudaimonist theories being virtue-ethical. e explanation for this is partly historical: the articles that heralded the mid-twentiethcentury renewal of interest in the virtues – paradigmatically Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958) – did not endorse virtue ethics per se, but rather a return to the broadly eudaimonist and virtue-ethical framework of ancient Greek philosophers. Other non-eudaimonist virtue ethicists soon sought to establish their own non-eudaimonist virtue-ethical views, at which point they felt it appropriate to note that virtue ethics is in fact a genus, of which eudaimonist virtue ethics turns out to be just one species (e.g. Swanton 2003: 1; Slote 2010b). Yet despite its ubiquity in, and importance to, contemporary virtue ethics literature, eudaimonia is discussed far more o en than the word is de ned or the concept fully articulated. In this chapter, I will discuss the role of eudaimonia in contemporary virtue ethics, and propose an account of what makes a view eudaimonist.